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Citation for published version (APA):Levitt, R. (2012). History in the Making. The Actuary, 24-25.
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Download date: 18. Feb. 2017
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When Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837 she decided that Hampton Court Palace would no longer serve as a royal residence. For generations, many local people had worked for the palace, and so the Queen ordered that the State Apartments would be opened free of charge to the public. The following year, nearly 116,000 visitors came fl ocking, ensuring that road and river services to Hampton Court fl ourished and the inns prospered.
Frederick Kensett, a coal merchant, owned the lease on the Cardinal Wolsey
on Hampton Court Green with his stepfather. Following the deaths of both Kensett and his stepfather in
1832, the lease passed to Kensett’s mother. Although Kensett did not live to see the village’s economy benefi t from the monarch’s
decision, he had already chosen to be a very early participant in a far
more signifi cant innovation – life insurance. By the time the Queen’s long reign ended in 1901, the British
life insurance industry was well on
the way to becoming a pillar of international fi nancial markets and played a part in millions of ordinary people’s fi nances.
Kensett became a policy holder in 1820 and paid his fi rst annual premium to the Society for Equitable Assurances on Lives and Survivorships just before his 29th birthday, for a whole-life insurance policy worth £600.
Pioneering the use of statisticsThe Equitable, founded in 1762, was pioneering the use of mortality and life expectancy statistics to set its premium and annuity rates. In 1821, Kensett bought a second policy, worth £400. He paid about £285 in premiums and charges (equal to about £20,700 today) over the last 11 years of his life, a serious fi nancial commitment. However, that was a lot less than the £1,000 (about £72,500) the Equitable paid Kensett’s sole legatee, his mother, in August 1832.
The Equitable set his premiums using its actuary’s analysis of life expectancy for men of Kensett’s age, occupation and medical history. It assumed he would live to the age of 64. If he had, his total payments would have added up
Frederick Kensett’s policy declaration in 1820 (from archive EL4/7/8)
24 THE ACTUARY • August 2012
History in Dr Ruth Levitt off ers a glimpse
into the origins of life insurance in Victorian Britain, following the
life and death of one of the early policyholders,
Frederick Kensett, through the Equitable’s archives
Life insuranceEarly [email protected]
www.theactuary.com
p24_25_aug_Levitt_FINAL•CT.indd 24p24_25_aug_Levitt_FINAL•CT.indd 24 23/7/12 11:02:1223/7/12 11:02:12
